Games in which a projectile such as a ball or some other projectile is thrown or bounced onto a game board are well-known.
One class of such games provides a cup or basket into which projectiles such as small balls and bottle caps are bounced or thrown, for example as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,616,270 to Madden; U.S. Pat. No. 2,126,873 to Czajkowski; U.S. Pat. No. 2,301,265 to Fandrey; U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,063 to Rea; U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,592 to Callaham; U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,175 to Ricks, Jr. et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,968 to Starnes.
Another class of such games uses a game board with a plurality of holes or recesses designed to retain a ball or other projectile, or to let the projectile pass through the board, the holes generally having different scores associated with them. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 453,310 to Reed; U.S. Pat. No. 642,903 to Hachmuth; U.S. Pat. No. 742,416 to Hall; and U.S. Pat. No. 823,507 to Carr.
Yet another class of such games provides a game board with one or more cups or holes or projectile-retaining regions, and projectile-deflecting portions such as raised bumps or stakes or pyramids to increase the variety or difficulty or unpredictability of the projectile's travel over the board toward or between target areas. Examples of such games include U.S. Pat. No. 689,054 to Bauer; U.S. Pat. No. 4,573,689 to Sultzbaugh; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,566,948 to Kidd. These game boards generally have raised edges or borders to retain the projectiles on the board, in the case of Bauer the game board sitting inside a box and having a preferred transparent cover with a center hole through which the projectile is dropped onto a central deflector on the game board.
Prior bounce-onto-the-game board games tend to have only a single form of play, and/or they are relatively easy to master and thus do not interest the players for very long.